UC Online

Conference on Course Design and Development

June 24-25, 2011 | Doubletree Hotel, Berkeley Marina

The UC Online Instruction Pilot Project (OIPP) held a conference in June 2011 where faculty and project staff presented and shared best practices in online course design and development.

While the OIPP Faculty Orientation Conference held in February 2011 focused on introducing and orienting faculty to the project, the theme of the Conference on Course Design and Development was how to build online courses most effectively. Faculty learned from each other as they traded ideas and debated different approaches. During his presentation, UC Berkeley’s Mark Kubinec, who with Professor Alexander Pines is developing an online chemistry course, told the audience it is important to consider “how do we take from the classroom what engages students – how can you transfer that engagement online?’’ Faculty panels, break-out seminars and speeches focused on several topics, including fostering student interaction, helping at-risk students, building a common learning environment, methods for delivering content and developing strategies to assess student work.

Vice Provost Dan Greenstein told conference participants that the project’s goal is to create the strongest possible courses by suggesting approaches to faculty as they work on their course roadmaps.

Faculty developers now move onto the course design and development stage.